Random Foods Started a War in History (15 items)

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  (#10) Tea

  You've probably heard this one before, but it bears repeating. In the 1770s, the British imposed taxes on the American colonies for goods such as stamps, spice, and tea, and the colonials were none too happy about it. So, some guys called the Sons of Liberty decided to show Britain what they really thought of the taxes in the best way they knew how, throwing a bunch of tea into the Boston harbor. Call it a symbolic act of teabagging the British, this Boston Tea Party that essentially started the American Revolution. 
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  (#8) Beef

  In 1854, there was a moment of peace between white immigrant settlers, many of whom were Mormon, and the indigenous Sioux tribe in the Nebraska Territory. The peace was not to last.

  In what is now Wyoming, a beef cow belonging to Mormon travelers wandered too far from the herd and was killed by a local native. The American response was devastating overkill. Soldiers went to arrest the Sioux responsible and ended up killing the tribe's chief. In retaliation, the tribe killed 27 soldiers, an act the press called a massacre. The Sioux Wars ensued, all because a Mormon couldn't control some cows. 
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  (#5) Bread

  When your people are hungry because they don't have food, what's a ruler to do? If you're a Roman ruler, you go take food. In particular, you take it from someone who has a lot of it, namely, Egypt.

  Around 30 BCE, Cleopatra died and Egypt was ripe for the taking. The Romans did exactly that, conquering the kingdom and using it as a means of getting grain and bread for centuries. The area was even called "The Breadbasket" because of its wealth of grain. 
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  (#2) Wine

  The Ottoman Empire was at the top of its game when Sultan Selim II came along. Selim didn't care nearly as much about his people as he did about drinking, and his favorite drink was wine from Cyprus. When he started to run out of this wine in 1571, he decided to get more by attacking Cyprus. Though at first successful, the backlash from this act of war was devastating. Selim lost almost his entire navy, and the Ottoman Empire began a decline from which it never recovered. 
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  (#13) Pork

  You know who Franz Ferdinand is, the archduke whose assassination started the First World War. Do you know much about the lead up to his death? The regional tensions, some of which can be attributed to the Pig War? 

  At the turn of the 20th century, there was a fair amount of animosity between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, but they kept the peace on account of mutually beneficial trade agreements. However, Serbia went around trade agreements by selling pork to Bulgaria; the Serbian pig industry was booming in the early 1900s.

  In retaliation for this secret trading, Austria-Hungary closed off all trade with Serbia entirely. What's more, they spread rumors that Serbian pigs were diseased, in order to ruin Serbian trade elsewhere. 
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  (#7) Salt

  In 1482, there began a war in Italy called the War of Ferrara, also known as the Salt War. There have been several salt wars throughout history, but this one takes the cake. The salt cake? Is that a thing?

  The War of Ferrara was fought over the trade of salt, which was restricted to Venice as per a commercial pact. A man named Ercole violated this pact by selling salt in Ferrara. Pope Sixtus IV was a little ticked off about that and, along with his Venetian allies, declared war on Ercole. The war ended when Ercole negotiated a treaty with the Venetians, without assistance from Sixtus. The Pope was so furious he died of heart failure. 

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